Federal Communications Commission Republican Commissioner Robert McDowell’s announcement Wednesday to step down could make it easier for Congress and the Obama administration to reshape the panel if its Democratic chairman also decides to depart when his term ends this summer.

Appointments to the commission are often done in pairs, as it is sometimes easier to win confirmation from the Senate for a Democrat if there is also a Republican in the mix. Rumors continue to swirl about FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, though he has indicated that he has no plans to leave anytime soon.

McDowell, the senior Republican and the panel’s longest-serving commissioner, announced at the end of Wednesday’s meeting that he is leaving before his term expires.

“I have decided I will step down as a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission in a few weeks,” he said in the surprise announcement.

McDowell said he did not know what he is going to do next except take his family on a vacation.

“I have absolutely no plans, other than to take my family on a much-needed vacation,” he said. “To paraphrase Monty Python, I’m not dead yet.”

Genachowski declined to address his own plans.

“Today is Rob’s day,” he said. “Landmark reforms like the Universal Service Fund wouldn’t have happened without him. There’s no news to report there. I have nothing to add.”

McDowell’s decision will leave the five-member commission with three Democrats and one Republican. The commission has functioned with four or fewer members in the past, but it can lead to a 2-2 tie.

While much of the recent talk has been about Genachowski’s eventual replacement, there appears to be no leading candidate to succeed McDowell. The most often mentioned include Ray Baum, a senior aide to Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.), and Neil Fried, senior telecommunications counsel to the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

As for a possible Genachowski successor, that has been a bit of a parlor game in Washington.

Democrats appear to have a number of candidates for the job, including current sitting Commissioners Mignon Clyburn and Jessica Rosenworcel; Karen Kornbluh, former ambassador to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; Blair Levin, former FCC chief of staff and primary author of the commission’s National Broadband Plan; and National Telecommunications and Information Administration chief Larry Strickling.

Lately, however, the leading candidate for the job appears to be Core Capital Partners Managing Director Tom Wheeler. While Wheeler, 66, is founder of Component Repair Technologies — an aerospace maintenance company — he has deep roots in the technology policy world, having headed both the National Cable and Telecommunications Association from 1976 to 1984 and Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association from 1992 to 2003.

Wheeler also has connections to President Barack Obama, working on his campaign and on the Obama-Biden Transition Project’s Agency Review Working Group. Corporate executives and public-interest representatives in town declined to talk publicly about the possibility that Wheeler could take the big office on the FCC’s 8th floor, but it’s notable that the reaction among the public-interest community is somewhat muted.